gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern."
Mr. R----d awaked in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted
on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the country to
Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there, he
waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very old man; without
saying any thing of the vision, he inquired whether he remembered having
conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could
not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of
the Portugal piece of gold, the whole returned upon his memory; he made an
immediate search for the papers, and recovered them; so that Mr. R----d
carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he
was on the verge of losing. The author has often heard this story told by
persons who had the best access to know the facts, who were not likely
themselves to be deceived, and were certainly incapable of deception. He
cannot therefore refuse to give it credit, however extraordinary the
circumstances may appear. The circumstantial character of the information
given in the dream, takes it out of the general class of impressions of
the kind which are occasioned by the fortuitous coincidence of actual
events with our sleeping thoughts. On the other hand, few would suppose
that the laws of nature were suspended, and a special communication from
the dead to the living permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. R----d a
certain number of hundred pounds. The author's theory is, that the dream
was only the recapitulation of information which Mr. R----d had really
received from his father while in life, but which at first he merely
recalled as a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not
uncommon for persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which
they have lost during their waking hours. It may be added, that this
remarkable circumstance was attended with bad consequences to Mr. R----d,
whose health and spirits were afterwards impaired by the attention which
he thought himself obliged to pay to the visions of the night.--_Notes to